Back to the Beginning
by carroussella
Summary: It wasn't fine. It was never going to be fine again. Spoilers for 4x13 "You Can See The Stars"
1. Chapter 1

**Fandom:** Rookie Blue  
**Pairing:** Nick/Andy  
**Category:** Romance  
**Rating:** K+  
_TWO-SHOT_

**Disclaimer: **I own Nick Collins. In my dreams. It's a different story in reality.

**Synopsis: **It wasn't fine. It was never going to be fine again. Spoilers for 4x13 "You Can See The Stars"

**Author's Note:** I have to say… that finale was shit. I have so many emotions and honestly, not one of them happy. I know McSwarek fans are over the moon, but I feel like I've been cheated. Surely McSwarek deserve more than just stories in an ambulance… their relationship isn't going to be mended in one night and the writers just glossed over the complexities of it. Ok, enough ranting. Nick in the last scene just broke my heart and I wanted to write something just for him. Come to mama, baby, and let me love you.

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**And we know it's never simple, never easy  
Never a clean break, no one here to save me  
You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand  
And I can't breathe without you, but I have to  
**~ Taylor Swift, _Breathe_ ~

"Go."

Nick could barely hear the words forming on his lips over the roar of blood in his head. _What was he saying?_

_No, no, don't go. _

The words screamed in his mind, tugged at his heart. He wanted to pull her back, wanted to grab Andy by the elbow and take her away from the madness of the day. But his hand reached out, giving her a slight push in the opposite direction.

"Go, it's fine."

It wasn't fine. It was never going to be fine again.

He supposed he should have known – deep down, somewhere in his subconscious, he probably did, but just never had the guts to admit it – that someday, one day, things would end up this way.

He just hadn't expected that it would be today. He hadn't expected it so soon.

He had hoped for time. He had prayed and wished to every deity that if he was given enough time, he would heal Andy's heart and make her his. He would have showed her how much he appreciated her, valued her, cared for her. He would have given her everything.

He had wanted this work – and still did – but he needed time. And now that time had run out.

As Andy paused, her tear-stained gaze meeting his eyes, he felt a little flicker of promise. She wasn't going willing, she wasn't going with wishing there was a better alternative.

_Stay_, the voice in his head shouted. But his lips remained pursed together, his voice losing its ability to make a sound.

And when she turned around, turned her back on him, he knew it was over. They were over.

Perhaps they had never begun at all.

He had always sorta, kinda known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he loved Andy more than she loved him. He had seen her with Swarek, and he knew what they shared was something that came by once in a person's life, if they were lucky.

The morning when she woke him up, happy and contented, he had nearly confessed his true feelings. He said he liked what they had. What he really meant was, _I love this. And I love you_.

The words were too soon for Andy to hear, that much he knew. She'd given him a chance and he'd grabbed it with both hands, afraid that if he let his grip a little too loose, she would be gone forever.

But now… now it was becoming obvious that he never really had her at all.

They were friends, he would even venture to say that they probably were best friends. He had been the one she turned to when Sam first broke up with her, and he had thought of no one else when he wanted to talk about his problems with Gail. She was also the first and only person who knew why he felt the need to drown his sorrows in alcohol one day every year.

She alone who knew more than just what he liked on his toast every morning; she knew what made him tick and which buttons to push. She knew when to press an issue, especially when something was bothering him, but more importantly, she knew when to back off and give him the space he sometimes so desperately needed.

She knew him, inside and out, and he knew, there and then, that there would no one else after Andy who would ever come close. No one with whom he would ever lay himself so emotionally bare again.

The thought of that hurt, and as he walked away from Best, from the rest of his friends waiting anxiously in the hospital lobby, he felt the tight constriction of his vest.

The same vest on which his heart lay bared now felt like a noose around his throat, threatening to rob him of the very life it was meant to protect.

He couldn't seem to get it off fast enough, but instead of feeling relief when the Velcro loosened, a sense of loss suddenly overwhelmed him.

The burning sensation in his eyes forced him to blink, but he knew it wasn't enough to stop the onslaught. The reality of what he was losing tonight was creeping him up on him, and not for the first time, he wished that he had been first.

Wished that he had been there before Swarek. Wished that he had never met Andy, never known her, never played house with her. Never spent a weekend alone with her, never lost himself in her.

Now he'd lost his head over her, but she was walking away. To another man, to another life that had existed long before he was ever around and he knew there was nothing left for him.

As he closed his eyes and felt the first tear fall, Nick finally admitted what he had known all along: it was back to the beginning for him.

Without Andy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** I'd actually intended for this just to be a one-shot from Nick's POV, but then decided that I should write from Andy's perspective as well. I might attempt to do a third chapter from Sam's later, but no promises. Enjoy!

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_**I worked so hard for this love of mine,  
Still I got nothing to show for it  
**~ Sara Bareilles, Love on the Rocks ~ _

**CHAPTER TWO**

"You're my story, Sam. You."

In that moment, those were the words she needed to say. Tears were clouding her vision, and she was clutching Sam's hand as if it were a lifeline. Or was it the other way around?

She wasn't sure why the words tumbled out as they did; she only knew that she needed to say something, _anything_, to break the silence between them. She didn't want to sit the ambulance in silence, so she filled up the space the only way she knew how: with words.

The story she told wasn't even true. Or at least, she didn't think it was. In that moment, she had said the first thing that came to her mind and she didn't stop to pause and think if it was a memory she was pulling from her subconscious or if it was just fiction that she was making up as she went along.

She didn't think Sam cared either way.

As they unloaded him off the ambulance and onto the gurney, she felt his hand go limp in hers. An answering shudder snaked up her spine, and she barely made into the waiting area before she had crumped in tears.

She thought of Sam, and the time they'd lost together. The time they had together, marred by uncertainty, insecurity, selfishness and just plain old stupidity. The time they might never have together anymore, because she wasn't sure if he would even pull through this. He'd lost a lot of blood, most of which now lingered on her uniform and stained her hands.

Then Nick had showed up, and without a word, had gathered her in his arms, offering comfort in a tangible way that she never really felt with either Sam or Luke. He ignored her bloodstained hands, uncaring that they belonged to that of another man, and held them tightly between his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, not fully cognizant of what she was actually apologizing for. She just knew that in that moment, something had changed between Nick and her, and she wasn't sure if she liked it at all.

He said nothing, just meeting her gaze steadily, knowingly, and she knew, right there and then, that Nick Collins was possibly the best thing that had ever happened to her. There had been no judgment in his gaze, no condemnation, no anger. Just simple acceptance and an understanding deeper than anything she had ever experienced with another person.

But then he had said, "Go", the word so soft, yet so full of resolution that for a while, she hesitated. To the others sitting around them, it had been nothing more than an encouragement for her to see Sam, but she knew, beyond a doubt, what Nick was really trying to tell her.

Go, he said, and be with the man you love. The man who isn't me.

She hadn't missed the subtle shove he gave her, nor the slight tremble in his fingers as he grasped her elbow. She resisted; Nick was everything that Sam was not and she was not prepared to let him go, not even now.

Yet still Nick pushed. It seemed as if he knew that she need just a little more impetus and he was giving her that.

She didn't want it.

She wanted Nick to hold her back, to stop her from leaving, from going to Sam. She wanted him to be jealous, be angry; to yell at her and ask her why the hell she was still hung up on a man who broke her heart multiple times and who, despite his onetime declaration of love, seemed to have no trouble moving on from her.

She wanted to stop herself from moving forward, towards Sam. He was all kinds of bad news, yet he still drew her like a moth to a flame. She thought he would have been a safe harbor after the engagement disaster that was Luke, but apparently, you didn't need to cheat on a fiancée to cause greater damage.

She heard Nick whisper "It's fine," but it was delivered in a flat tone and she knew he didn't mean it. He couldn't have meant it, she told herself. Because how could it be fine that she was essentially abandoning him on the one night that he might need her the most, all for another man?

It's not fine, she wanted to tell him. It's not fine because Sam has been shot, he's bleeding all over the floor, and she wants to go to him, to make sure he's okay, but Nick needs her. It's not fine because she cannot decide who needs her more in that instant.

Nor can she decide who she wants to comfort more. Sam is fighting for his life, but Nick has just killed a man. It might have been self-defense, the proper response, but she knows what death and killing have done to Nick and what the night has in store for him.

If she stays with Nick, Sam could possibly die without her saying goodbye, and in spite of everything that has happened between them, Sam was her training, a man she respected and admired, even if her judgment of his personality was occasionally clouded by the memories of them getting naked together.

But if she goes with Sam, she knows that everything she has ever wanted, ever needed or hoped or dreamed for, everything that she has found with Nick, will be washed away. Because she knows, even if Nick will deny otherwise, that if she makes one move back to Sam, whatever she had with Nick will crack under the strain and she will never be able to mend it.

But in that moment, her heart is being torn into pieces by a man bleeding out on a hospital gurney and another with acceptance and understanding in his eyes. And she knew, in that moment, she had quite possibly lost both of them, in very different ways.

Andy McNally was right back at the beginning once again.


End file.
